**FIRST EMAIL**/2007 FRC Manual Decryption and Bill of Materials Information [Archive]

View Full Version : **FIRST EMAIL**/2007 FRC Manual Decryption and Bill of Materials Information

Mark McLeod

03-01-2007, 16:01

Greetings Teams:

2007 FRC Manual Decryption Information

The 2007 manual will be available to teams on our website in the form of '.pdf' files at 5 PM EST today, January 3, 2007. Please note six (6) sections of the manual (Introduction, Arena, Game, Robot, Tournament, and Kit of Parts) as well as the Kit of Parts (KOP) Checklist are encrypted. Instructions for decrypting these files are given below.

Tip! We recommend you get a binder with tabs as there are a total of eleven sections!

To accommodate timely distribution of the encrypted portions of the manual, here is the plan:

The decryption password, which will allow you to open these files, will be announced at the end of the Kickoff on Saturday, January 6, 2007.

**IMPORTANT** The files will not be readable until the decryption password is released at Kickoff on Saturday.

The non-encrypted versions will be posted at 12:00 noon on Saturday January 6th, however, teams are encouraged to download the encrypted sections ahead of time to help alleviate downloading delays on the 6th.

There is no difference in the content of the encrypted and non-encrypted versions.

Individuals traveling to a Kickoff site who wish to have a manual to read for their ride home are encouraged to bring a portable computer with these files saved on the hard-drive, Acrobat Reader installed. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader Version 7 or higher to decrypt these files. If you do not have it, you may download it for free at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html)

************************************************** *****************

INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOADING (and TESTING) ENCRYPTED MANUAL:

In order to be sure that you have the capability to decrypt the files at the appropriate time, a test file is currently posted on the FIRST website.

The method used to encrypt these files is secure. It is called 128-bit RC4 encoding, and is a current standard considered by the US Government as completely secure for short (weeks) periods of time. Please go to:

http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=3828

(http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=3828)You may download this file now and decrypt it with the following case-sensitive password: 2007DecryptTest

Acrobat will prompt you for the password when you try to open the file.

If you get to see the message "Congratulations! You have successfully decrypted the test file", then you have successfully decrypted the file and have everything you need for Saturday.

Bill of Materials

This season, each team's decision regarding building field mockups may be a bit more complex than normal. The Game Design Committee feels
that an advance Bill of Materials (BOM) list might be misleading and cause some teams to buy more materials than they will likely use.

Please wait for a full set of field drawings and their lower cost equivalents to be released immediately following Kickoff. Knowing the nature of this year's challenge, you can more logically decide what to buy and build.

See you at Kickoff!

Go Teams!

Andy Grady

03-01-2007, 16:05

Bill of Materials

This season, each team's decision regarding building field mockups may be a bit more complex than normal. The Game Design Committee feels
that an advance Bill of Materials (BOM) list might be misleading and cause some teams to buy more materials than they will likely use.

Please wait for a full set of field drawings and their lower cost equivalents to be released immediately following Kickoff. Knowing the nature of this year's challenge, you can more logically decide what to buy and build.

Now...that is scary. So much for simplicity in a 2007 game!

JohnBoucher

03-01-2007, 16:12

At least there could of been a second hint in the test decrypt file :(

Joel J

03-01-2007, 16:21

Yea.. now five is starting to sound like pentathlon.

DanDon

03-01-2007, 16:26

That section about the Bill of Materials increases my feelings of something like a teetor-totter and other complex field elements. :yikes::ahh::yikes:

2004?

IndySam

03-01-2007, 16:27

Now...that is scary. So much for simplicity in a 2007 game!

Sounds like there will be many scoring options.

Conor Ryan

03-01-2007, 16:34

For those of you out there that don't like using Adobe Reader, I just tried the more compact program Foxit Reader (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php) to open the test file and it worked beautifully, so if you use that it works just as well.

In other news, I think the game design committee has us on our toes this year more than ever, a Picture for a clue, a banana in the picture, no bill of materials at all, it's going to be a fun year.

Tri_Lam

03-01-2007, 16:49

that means i ahve to wait till 2 (pacific) i was searching the site trying to get the files hahaha

Tim Arnold

03-01-2007, 17:02

Its up, very speedy, no problems getting them all here.

Jay Trzaskos

03-01-2007, 17:05

Same here, now all I have to do is sit back and relax until Saturday :)

Billfred

03-01-2007, 17:14

Has anyone noticed that the Awards section is encrypted as well (though not mentioned as such in the email)?

Interesting...

yarb65

03-01-2007, 17:32

When I try to download I get a request for a password. How do I get the manual downloaded.

Madison

03-01-2007, 17:34

When I try to download I get a request for a password. How do I get the manual downloaded.

The manual is encrypted. The password will be given at the end of the Kickoff on Saturday morning.

chris31

03-01-2007, 17:35

When I try to download I get a request for a password. How do I get the manual downloaded.

Do a right click, "Save As" so you can save it even though you dont have the password yet.

yarb65

03-01-2007, 17:44

Thanks

JBotAlan

03-01-2007, 19:25

Is anyone else here making themself crazy right now?

I have the 2007 game on my hard drive, but I CAN'T READ IT!!! (why isn't there a "bashing head on desk" smiley?)

I love how they had to mention that it is secure encoding. I wonder if in '05 someone brute-forced the manual, and that's why they had a ridiculously long and random password '06 instead of the l33t sp33k they did in '05.

I don't know. For sure I won't get much sleep now. they HAD to release those PDFs early...

JBot

EDIT: I'm not going to brute-force anything. Just wanted to make that clear.

boy_scout72688

03-01-2007, 22:35

Yeah it does kind of suck that we don't get the clue to decrypt them but ohh well. In a way thats fair!!!! But then again I wish I could read the manual.

I AM NOT GOING TO SLEEP AT ALL!!!!!! This drives me nuts! FIRST if you get this we should get a clue!!!

(Bangs head on desk):ahh:

Jonathan Norris

03-01-2007, 23:30

Now...that is scary. So much for simplicity in a 2007 game!

Yea my guess is that something in the BOM would give a part of the field away :yikes:

We will find out on Saturday!

fimmel

04-01-2007, 00:38

just a question..... are teams allowed to mirror the files on their servers? do we need permissions? if so where would i go to get that?

thanks in advance
/forest

Uberbots

04-01-2007, 00:45

oh my the tension is building quite high...
i cant wait for the decryption passwords. This is going to be so exciting (=

esquared

04-01-2007, 12:36

Talking about cracking the code is against the rules.

The first rule of distributed password recovery software club is, you do not talk about distributed password recovery software club. :mad:

Graham Donaldson

04-01-2007, 12:53

Yea my guess is that something in the BOM would give a part of the field away :yikes:

We will find out on Saturday!

Now you've got me thinking about what wouldn't be a logical inclusion on a FIRST field! GRRR!!!!!!!:mad:

And we really do need a "bashing head on desk" and/or "ripping one's hair out" smiley.

Mark McLeod

04-01-2007, 14:05

Now you've got me thinking about what wouldn't be a logical inclusion on a FIRST field! GRRR!!!!!!!:mad:

(1) 54' x 26' pool liner

artdutra04

04-01-2007, 21:54

just a question..... are teams allowed to mirror the files on their servers? do we need permissions? if so where would i go to get that?

thanks in advance
/forestMost of the time FIRST does not like it when teams mirror the current Game Manual without emailing them asking for permission first. The reason for this is that during the build season they may periodically update the different sections of the game manual as needed, and you and your website would now have out-of-date files on them. There would be no way for FIRST to guarantee that teams have the current versions on their team/personal websites.

While FIRST generally appreciates the gracious professionalism of team's wanting to host files elsewhere to alleviate the load, they generally will say no.

SamC

04-01-2007, 23:01

Most of the time FIRST does not like it when teams mirror the current Game Manual without emailing them asking for permission first. The reason for this is that during the build season they may periodically update the different sections of the game manual as needed, and you and your website would now have out-of-date files on them. There would be no way for FIRST to guarantee that teams have the current versions on their team/personal websites.

While FIRST generally appreciates the gracious professionalism of team's wanting to host files elsewhere to alleviate the load, they generally will say no.

I did e-mail them, just to see what they would say. And here is their response.

Thank you very much for the wonderful offer. We appreciate you and your team's generosity. Our IT department has informed us that they do not see a problem with teams accessing our site on Saturday and that bandwidth would not be a problem. While we have to decline your offer we want to thank you for thinking of the FIRST community at this hectic time. Have a great season!

Adam Richards

04-01-2007, 23:04

I did e-mail them, just to see what they would say. And here is their response.Every year, they say the same thing, and every year, it always seems to have a denial of service.

fimmel

04-01-2007, 23:14

btw i did some quick math and guessing that they will have a pw less than 30 characters using lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and symbols. their would be
32,581,350,291,633,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
passwords might take awhile to guess that.....:ahh:
/forest

Tottanka

04-01-2007, 23:23

Gabe

05-01-2007, 00:14

DECRYPTION KEY

Ujuzt6otpwn3d

If you don't believe me, try it.

Binome

05-01-2007, 00:17

1337 2p3@k f+\/\/

Stuart

05-01-2007, 00:21

ok Ill keep a running tab of passwords Ive tried

a nope
aa nope
aaa nope
aaaa nope but I think Im getting close
aaaaa nope
aaaaaa nope

. .darn dave and his leet encryption skilz, this might take a while.

fimmel

05-01-2007, 00:34

i figured out how many pwds my computer can generate and try a second its like 9 million every hour.....at that rate it would take 412,976,275,656,361,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
:ahh:years to try all of the combinations up to 30 characters

and if you take that # and divide it by how many years scientist say the earth as been around (approx 3 billion years) it would take 137,658,758,552,120,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 that amount of time. i think i need more computers.....lol:D

Elgin Clock

05-01-2007, 00:54

jacob07

05-01-2007, 14:17

Now you've got me thinking about what wouldn't be a logical inclusion on a FIRST field! GRRR!!!!!!!:mad:

And we really do need a "bashing head on desk" and/or "ripping one's hair out" smiley.

That would make my day :yikes: